Throwback Tuesday: Ms. Marvel's Mind Control Turn

Now, strictly speaking, since Chris Claremont barely writes any new comics any more, every entry is potentially a throwback, despite the day it's published. But for now, let's roll with the meme, even if isn't Thursday. Today, we're covering the mess that is Uncanny X-Men I#269.

As regular readers of this all too infrequently updated blog already know, the events of this particular issue have already been kinda covered in this entry from late 08. Still, upon further examination, it turned out we barely scratched the surface of mind control weirdness. Let's start with the basics...

Uncanny X-Men I#269 tells the story of whatever happened to Rogue after she sacrificed herself dragging the lethal robot menace Master Mold through the Siege Perilous back in Uncanny X-Men I#247. The Siege is a mystical portal that leads to a conventiently undefined afterlife where higher powers examine who you were and use it as a basis for your next incarnation. It's like the John Lennon song Instant Karma without Yoko's backing vocals.

Master Mold would return years later as the mysterious, mutant hating Bastion but Rogue was the first one to come back... As, well, herself... So much for advancing along the karmic wheel. She was returned to her old room in the abandoned Australian outback town the X-Men had been using as a base when she went through the Siege. And the minute she returned, she was in for some bad news.

                "It has now been confirmed that Mystique, leader of the federal government's
                                          super-powered strike team... has been killed."

Talk about an ominous home coming... After learning her surrogate mother had been killed, not even noticing the dark, brooding figure of Jacob Reisz behind Val Cooper, Rogue rushed out to inform the  X-Men of Mystique's demise. But, much to her own surprise, she found the X-Men had long since been driven off by the town's former inhabitants: the Reavers. The cyborg mercenaries were ready to kill Rogue, regarding her as little more than the one who got away. But, she was rescued by the most unlikely of people...

              "Surprised, Rogue? Feeling's mutual. We have unfinished business, you and I."

I'll say... Not to mention unreal business. That's Carol Danvers, better known as Ms. Marvel... A woman whose powers, mind and memories Rogue infamously absorbed in between scenes of 1981's Avengers Annual I#10. The real Carol Danvers survived, though robbed of her personality, experiences and superhuman powers. Eventually, due to a supreme effort on Charles Xavier's part, she regained most of her mind and memories and the Brood would ultimately mess with her genetic structure to turn Carol into the white hole powered Binary.

So, in a sense, the one, true Carol Danvers was alive and well... Which left Rogue stuck with a copy of Carol in her mind. The two would often struggle and vy for control of Rogue's body, before she got herself sucked through the Siege Perilous. In the afterlife, Rogue and "Carol" were seperated, spewing both women back out as seperate individuals, because hey kids, comics.

"Carol" was ready to hand Rogue to a knuckle sandwich or two for having been trapped inside her head all those years and she didn't care if she had to punch a hole through the Reavers to do so. An added wrinkle: it seemed that Rogue no longer possessed Ms. Marvel's super strength and flight. All she had to rely on to keep her safe were her original mutant power and personality absorption abilities... Luckily she was able to think (and walk) on her feet: she headed for the teleporter Gateway sitting on the outskirts of town.

                                       "What you won't (ah hope, because you cant) give...
                                                          Ah'm afraid ah'll haveta take."

So, in order to escape from a furious victim of your mind control, you decide to... mind control somebody else? Well, that's one way to solve a problem and hey, it does give you one magnificent tan.

"The bull-roarer opens the gateway portal.
But you have my word, dear friend. I'll be back."

And with that, Rogue is gone moments before "Carol" can catch up. Rogue was able to teleport herself to the Savage Land where she was forced to fend for herself for an extended period of time. Without any powers other than her own, surviving in a dinosaur filled realm that time forgot, Rogue slowly regained her self confidence. But, whatever became of Carol?

           "Welcome to Muir Isle, Carol. How delightful t'see you seperated from Rogue at last."

... Without any explanation whatsoever, "Carol" finds herself on Muir Island where things aren't exactly as she remembers. Moira MacTaggert seems vicious and cold, the sorceress Amanda Sefton appears equally evil hearted and what's Polaris doing there strapped to a wall? All is soon made clear when "Carol" meets the villain to beat.

"Stop it, stop it... I just wanted to play with everybody's head!"

"Carol" quite correctly identifies the astral projection as being Charles Xavier's son David Haller... But, just like everybody else on Muir, the boy isn't himself. So, who's to blame for all these mind control shenanigans... Ow, you guessed it: the Shadow King. And he means business. So much so that he turns himself into a particularly penis nosed reptile to charm Ms. Marvel.

      "My province is the mind. As I claimed this boy, Legion... and all the others on this rock..."

Oh, you can guess what happened next, right?

The Shadow King made sure Carol was his to control, mind, body and soul forever. But just how she arrived on Muir Isle was never touched on in the actual comics. Well, as it turns out, Chris Claremont had planned this particular issue to be but a minor chapter in a larger Shadow King centered storyline that should have run all through Uncanny X-Men I#300. Along the way, it would have been revealed the King didn't merely control Moira and the people on Muir, he was also in command of both the Reavers and Gateway. This would have explained the fact Carol popped up in Scotland... *and* the Savage Land, moments after her conversion.

"We don't possess sufficient life-force between us to sustain two independent beings.
As one prospers, the other rots!"

Mind controlled by the Shadow King, "Carol" is determined to absorb Rogue's lifeforce in order to regain her full potential. All this in an attempt to be able to serve her new master even better. And as it turns out, even being near the monstrous Ms. Marvel's form infected Rogue with the Shadow King's deep, dark influences.

"Her face... she's like a walkin' corpse! Shoot... the same's happenin' to me!"

And, just when things seemed at their bleakest, salvation was at hand from the most unlikeliest of sources... That is, if you didn't spot his helmeted cameo on the cover a little earlier. But first, let's indulge "Carol" in what would prove to be the final speech she'd ever deliver...

"The Shadow King finally managed to track you down. Once you're dust, your powers added to mine... I'll be able to serve him that much better!"

And with a well placed magnetic force blasts, a certain magnetic mutant decided to involve himself. He chose sides and made his presence known.

                                                                       "I chose you."

A good half a decade before the Pokemon craze, Magneto already coined that franchise' most popular catchphrase. With "Carol" dead, Rogue was safe, even though she was roped into fighting the magnetically powered Zaladane along with Magneto, Ka-Zar and SHIELD. After that adventure, she'd find herself on Muir Island only to end up mind controlled by the Shadow King after all in Uncanny X-Men I#278.

                                              "This is wrong! 'Cept it seems so natural."

If only Rogue had told Magneto what she'd been going through, even before the final confrontation against "Carol" in the Savage Land. As it turns out in Uncanny X-Men I#275, the master of magnetism had his own run in with the evil entity. 

"At last I confront the Shadow King. Followed by sick shame at the awful cost of my survival."

Knowing Claremont, he would undoubtedly have revealed the circumstances of Magneto's initial encounter with the King, leading up to the proposed climax in Uncanny X-Men I#300. This anniversary issue should be marked with the death of Charles Xavier and Magneto taking over for the professor full time.

Alas, Claremont more or less willingly left Uncanny X-Men with issue 279, already co-written by Fabian Nicieza and Jim Lee. So a lot of plot threads were left dangling, though Claremont confirmed the connection between the Reavers and the Shadow King in 2001's X-Treme X-Men Annual. It's also not unthinkable he meant to reveal a lot of Magneto's horrendous, evil deeds were indirectly caused by the Shadow King's lingering corruption, which would have made Magnus' intended status quo a lot easier to digest.

Maybe someday we'll know for sure...

Pretty's Perfunctory Persuasions

Meet Pretty Boy... a likeable, if not handsome guy. Why is that lady running away from him? Well, here goes... a post on Pretty Boy, maybe the ultimate of mind control goons, a cyborg capable of controlling minds, making his victims love what he does to them and looking positively hot while raping them. He'll make you like it, cos he's just that good.

Pretty Boy was introduced in Uncanny X-men # 228, as a member of the Reavers, a band of marauding cyborg thugs who used the mutant known only as Gateway to teleport them from their base in the Australian desert to wherever they had planned their next heist. And they weren't exactly subtle about it either...

But while most of his fellow Reavers were little more than cybernetically augmented humans with big guns, Pretty Boy possessed a few additional powers.

His foremost ability was to rewrite people's brains using filaments that shot forth from his eyes. He first used this power when he kidnapped banker Jessan Hoan, a gifted financial expert. The Reavers needed someone like her to make sure all the loot they recovered from their raids was put to good use. Jessan wasn't too eager to assist them, but that didn't stop Pretty Boy.

"No muss, no fuss, presto changeo... a whole new you! Isn't that nice?"

Marc Silvestri's art answers that question, Jessan is enjoying the sensation of being violated and reshaped into the person her assailant wants her to be. And Pretty Boy would have gotten away with it too, if not for the X-men who happened to pick this moment to attack the Reavers in their desert town.

Longshot's throwing knives cut off Pretty Boy's mind control tendrils (or, his eyes) causing him to be pretty miffed at the two X-men. He even tried to recruit Dazzler into the Reavers using the same trick, but her eyes proved to be just as dangerous...

"And once these fiber-optic filaments... burrow into your brain... you won't want to fight me anymore. You'll be a Reaver, body and soul!"

Ahhhh, yeah, that's the good stuff right there... Already claiming people body and soul in his first appearance... Lemme tell you, that Pretty Boy is going places!

As it turns out, the place he was going first was Gateway's teleporation gate. The X-men defeated the Reavers and took over their desert base, but Pretty Boy, Skullbuster and Bonebreaker managed to escape. They hooked up with Donald Pierce, former Hellfire Club member and cyborg in his own right to form a new incarnation of the Reavers.

They were later joined by Lady Deathstrike and Cole, Reese and Macon, three former Hellfire Club soldiers who were cybernetically enhanced as well. These Reavers managed to drive the X-men out, relishing in their victory and destroying the team's personal belongings out of pure spite. Here's Pretty Boy hacking away at stuff in Wolverine's quarters...

In a nice bit of characterisation, Claremont has Lady Deathstrike step in to prevent Pretty Boy from further defiling the blade of the Yashida family. Sure, she may be criminally insane and obsessed with killing Wolverine, but Yuriko still knows more about honouring and respecting a great house like the Yashida's than a hick like Pretty Boy ever could. Not that it stopped him from trying to get what he wanted, the only way he knew how...

Pretty Boy's fortright, even arrogant demeanor cost him dearly. Pierce got fed up with his constant lip and after Pretty was damaged during a confrontation with Wolverine and Jubilee, the Donald decided to play a cruel trick when he rebuilt his frame.

Still, his mostly robotic body didn't make him any less of a threat, quite the opposite. A fact Polaris discovered when the Reavers attacked Muir Island in Uncanny X-men # 255.

This time, it was the Banshee's wail that cut Pretty Boy's fiber optic mind control filaments. Pretty Boy didn't get to control any more people during Claremont's initial run on the X-books. And soon after Chris left, he was presumed to have died along with most of the Reavers during a Sentinel attack by future villain Trevor Fitzroy.

Luckily, you can't keep a good cyborg down... So by the time X-treme X-men Annual 2001 came along, Chris Claremont was back and so was Pretty Boy. As usual, both were up to no good...

Ahh, just look at those sensual, seductive and even downright pornorific poses Pretty Boy and his victim Sage are in. He is all ready to use his powers to scramble her computerlike brain and turn the X-men's mentat against them. And with no one to interrupt the process, how'd it turn out?

"I take it then, Pretty Boy's new program didn't take?"

Sage's computer mind proved to be the stronger mental CPU, easily overriding Pretty Boy's cybernetic commands and even using them to take control of him to boot. Considering that annual is the last time Chris Claremont ever wrote the character, one can only applaud the irony of Pretty Boy's story arc.

For close to 15 years, every single attempt to mind control people gets thwarted... And the minute he does succeed and has his (s)way, it backfires... Because he's actually the weaker party in the mind control.

Such delicious irony. One might even say pretty... boy.

Psylocke's first time...

The thing about telepaths: once you have them on your team, its pretty much a given you'll end up mind controlled. Comes with the territory... And the X-men have always had what seems to be a busload of mind readers and thought benders... Heck, the team was founded by one.

Nowadays, he's the team's undisputed moral conscience. But in the early days, Charles Xavier didn't think twice about stopping someone from thinking twice...

Charlie was king of the mind rape...From turning the Vanisher into a powerless amnesiac in
X-men # 2 to actually making Beast's parents forget they had a mutant son because Xavier figured it would be easier and less painful for everyone involved... All in a day's work.

Jean Grey must have been taking notes in class, because she used the old mind control trick too on occasion, for instance when she manipulated Kitty Pryde's parents. for instance.

Yet, of all the X-men's telepaths, Psylocke was the most conservative when it came to using her mental powers to control others.

Which is a little odd, considering she was created by Chris Claremont. But, no worries, Uncanny X-men # 252 finally saw Betsy Braddock lose her mind control virginity when she forced all her fellow X-men to go kill themselves. 

Confused? Don't be...

In the latter days of the X-men's stay in the Australian outback, the team was in rough shape after losing members left and right. Longshot had gone missing, Rogue was sucked into the Siege Perilous and vanished, Storm seemingly died and Wolverine was nowhere to be found either.

What's even worse: while they were away on a mission in the Savage Land, the Reavers had invaded the little desert town the X-men had been using as their base of operations. The criminal cyborgs planned a little ambush for their enemies.

Psylocke picked up on the Reavers' presence the second Gateway teleported them back home. Realising they were in no shape to take them on, Psylocke figured a self inflicted death would be preferable to being shot to bits by the approaching cyborg army. Of course, simply asking Gateway to teleport them to safety would have been an option too, but hey... who said this stuff has to make sense?

Betsy pulled out the Siege Perilous, a gem that's actually a portal to the afterlife. Wait, Roma will explain it...

Prefering this kind of death, Betsy turned her psi powers into overdrive and made sure everyone on the team agreed with her that suicide really is quite painless.

"It feels like we're running away" No, Dazzler, running away would be having Gateway teleport you away... You DO know he's sitting a few feet away from you, right? Anyways, Peter passes through the portal and Dazzler smells a rat.

With only Havok left to persuade, the following exchange is golden.

After Havok had passed on through, Psylocke awaited the approaching Reavers and said goodbye before entering the Siege herself.

"You'll kill no X-men today!"

True, you singlehandedly beat them to it. So take a bow, Betsy Braddock, you have succeeded  where Magneto and a half a dozen superbaddies failed: you killed off all the X-men. You're now the team's worst enemy. 

Accomplishing all that in only your first try at mind control? As far as first times go, that's like losing your virginity in a 12 body gang bang at a Tijuana donkey show. 

Sidenote: did anyone else notice the CHINK! sound effect the Siege gem made in the previous panel? I'm sure that was just a totally random occurence and has absolutely no influence whatsoever on Betsy's reincarnated new form...

Oops.